


A Helping Hand

by FictionPenned



Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Canon-Typical Horror, Friendship, Gen, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: The overpowering small of dark roast and hazelnut creamer hits Lydia's nostrils as she leans forward to peer at the so-called map. After a minute, she glances back up at her friend."Did you spill Delia's coffee on this to make it look old?"Beetlejuice scoffs once and begins to fidget uncomfortably. "No."Lydia continues to stare him down, entirely unconvinced.Written for Yuletide 2020.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Helping Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cookiegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiegirl/gifts).



Lydia falls back onto her bed with a heavy, dramatic sigh. She does not bother to so much as kick off her shoes before flopping her feet on top of the duvet cover, something that would have made both Delia and her father shake their heads and suck their teeth in disapproval. Thankfully, however, neither of them are present to judge her for her deliequency. 

She clasps her lace-gloved hands over her abdomen and sighs for a second, self-indulgent time, eyes blinking furiously as she tries to clear away the hazy veil of tears that threatens to fall at any given moment. Though Lydia is in the habit of carrying a great deal of sadness on her person at all times, she prides herself on being largely above the childish act of crying. Sadness loses its aesthetic appeal when snot and sniffles and painfully contorted expressions are introduced into the mix, so no, she won't cry. Not even in private. 

After a long moment of self-pity, Lydia rolls onto one side and props her head up on one hand, staring at the old-fashioned polaroids that line the wall. Half of their subjects are blurry -- turns out that Ghosthunters was right, and ghosts are exceptionally difficult to capture on film -- but Lydia is crystal clear in every single one. It's a small encapsulation of the life and the family that she's found here. She's grown to appreciate them, in their own strange and unusual way. She loves her dad, she loves the Maitlands, and she loves Beetlejuice. She's even learned to tolerate Delia's more grating habits, but these people haven't managed to replace her mom or cancel out her grief. 

In winter, she feels her mother's absence even more profoundly. She misses snowfall and sledding and off-key singing. She misses warm blankets and tv shows and hot chocolate. She misses the effort her mom always went to to turn Lydia's mood around on days when both nights and days felt dark. 

There's a lot of things about her mom's company that are worth missing. 

A single tear and a sob slip past her stubborn guard, and it is at that very moment that Beetlejuice barges into her room without so much as bothering to seek out an invitation. 

"Hey, kid, you'll never guess what I found!" 

Lydia bolts upright, wiping away the rebel tear with the butt of her palm. She definitely doesn't want Beetlejuice to see her cry. At worst, he'd probably mock her or crack a joke that doesn't quite manage to land. At best, he'd probably try to cheer her up, which has equal chances at being genuinely charming or devolving into a slow-motion train wreck done at epic scale. She isn't entirely willing to risk the damage of the latter in hopes of the former. 

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" she asks, putting on her best impression of her usual self. 

"No hands, can't knock," Beetlejuice says by way of a bullshit excuse, raising newly severed stumps. 

Lydia merely snorts derisively as she rolls her eyes. 

"Use your elbow, then," she replies, criss-crossing her legs beneath her as she continues to gaze up at the ghost, entirely unimpressed by his antics. His calvicade of horrors is old hat by now, more humor than horror. 

"Locked doors are for keeping humans out." A shrug of Beetlejuice's shoulders restores the temporarily vanished body parts before he crosses the room to hover at the foot of Lydia's bed. "Do you want to see what I found or not, kid? I haven't got all day." 

Lydia arches a single dark eyebrow. "It's not a spider again, is it?" 

"Hey!" Beetlejuice bristles, immediately springing to his own defense. He slips both his thumbs behind his tattered and decaying lapels and puffs his chest out a little bit further, like a pigeon pretending to be a hawk. "That was a VERY good spider, I'll have you know."

There's a flicker of genuine amusement lurking at the corner of Lydia's mouth, briefly displacing and overpowering her prevailing sadness. 

"Anyway," Beetlejuice continues, ploughing onward as if nothing at all had happened. "It's not a spider. It's a treasure map." 

The ghost makes a theatrical and melodramatic show of pulling a bit of wrinkled, yellowed material from his jacket pocket, unfolding it and laying it flat on Lydia's bedspread. 

The overpowering small of dark roast and hazelnut creamer hits Lydia's nostrils as she leans forward to peer at the so-called map. After a minute, she glances back up at her friend. 

"Did you spill Delia's coffee on this to make it look old?" 

Beetlejuice scoffs once and begins to fidget uncomfortably. "No."

Lydia continues to stare him down, entirely unconvinced. 

Scarcely a heartbeat later, Beetlejuice backtracks and throws someone else under the oncoming bus. "It was the resident himbo's idea, but nevermind that. Are we going hunting for treasure or what? I hear there might be some lost gold to uncover." 

"I'm not a child in need of babysitting, Beetlejuice. I'm sixteen." Lydia looks away from him pointedly and moved to adjust the items on her bedside table, herding them all away from the edge so that they're no longer in any danger of falling. It's a pointless task, really, but it's something to do. 

"Oh, come on. Fun doesn't die just cause you're sixteen now. What, do you want to do your taxes and pay the mortgage and let the bills keep piling up until you drink yourself into an early grave?" 

His frustration is evident, but Lydia remains stubbornly silent. 

"Look," Beetlejuice releases a weighty, exasperated groan and perches on the very, very edge of Lydia's bed, and careful not to disturb the map, he crosses one leg over the other and cups his knee in his hands. "We overheard your dad talking about how this time of year might be hard for you, and I know I'm not the wishy-washy, touchy-feely, self-help book hawking kind of guy, but the resident pair of idiots thought it might be a worth making sure that you have a bit of fun. They even sacrificed one of their ugly sip-n-paint things for this." 

Beetlejuice reaches across the bed and turns the map over, revealing a brightly colored smear of acrylics that was probably supposed to resemble a flower. 

Lydia barely acknowledges the effort. Instead, she drags her hand over the edge of the table, feeling her nail snag in the tiny pits in its varnish. 

After a long, silent moment, Beetlejuice stands. 

"We're not trying to be your lame parents, you know. We just want to be your lame friends. It's normal to do lame things with your lame friends. You can post it on Instagram. People will like it. People are weird that way." 

He gazes at Lydia, eyes seemingly filled with desperate hope for a change of heart, but Lydia merely purses her lips. The muscles in her wandering hand tighten, too, leaving it curled and gnarled like a set of talons. 

"Suit yourself," Beetlejuice says. 

It is only when he moves to exit the room in the same manner by which he had entered that Lydia hesitates. She may be miserable and moody, but she doesn't want to drag anyone down into the pit with her, especially when they're just trying to help. Surely there isn't any harm in being distracted for a little while, even if the manner of distraction is a bit silly.

Or a lot silly. 

Her mom wouldn't want her to mope. She'd want her to seize the day and make the most of it. 

"Wait." 

Beetlejuice turns on a dime, face lighting up. Literally. 

"Yes?" 

Lydia gathers up the shattered remnants of her will and pushes herself off of the bed. "Is there really some kind of treasure at the end of this thing?" 

Mischief dances across Beetlejuice's entire ghostly body. "I don't know, me-hearty. What d'ya say? Wanna find out?" he says, dropping into an enthusiastic impression of a pirate. 

Despite her still-bleeding heart and her longing for winters long-since past, Lydia manages both a genuine smile and a proud salute. 

"Aye-aye, captain!" 

There's a beat of shared understanding that passes between them, and then, arm-in-arm, they set off in search of buried treasure. 


End file.
